Namibia divided on homosexuality

FOR the past few days, social media has been a tool to air support towards homosexuality while others have used it to oppose it.

Political commentator Ndumba Kamwanyah, over the weekend, came out in support of same-sex marriage on Facebook.

Kamwanyah wrote, “Same-sex marriage will not bring Namibia down nor has it brought any country down. If anything, corruption and mismanagement are what will bring us down.”

Sioni Iikela, however, wrote that this is a sign of losing our values, norms and free ticket to cultural imperialism.

On 17 May, which is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, the Law Reform Development Commission (LRDC) of Namibia submitted two reports pertaining to obsolete laws and abolishment’s of the common law offences of sodomy and natural sexual offences. The chief legal officer of LRDC directorate Basilius Dyakugha handed it over to justice minister Yvonne Dausab.

Last week, Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) secretary general Efraim Nekongo said SPYL is sickened by recent discussions of homosexuality by government and possibly parliament. SPYL says elected officials must focus on “bread and butter” issues. SPYL said homosexuality is “satanic and demonic”. First lady Monica Geingos in a social media post on Friday said, “Scrap all obsolete laws and stop being homophobic.” Geingos’ reaction came a day after Nekongo’s remarks.

Namibia’s youngest member of parliament Patience Masua also tweeted, “Both those issues can co-exist.

They are not mutually exclusive. We can fight for and advance human rights while at the same time formulating and implementing measures to build our economy. That is effective and dynamic governance.”

Masua was responding to the former editor of the ruling Swapo newspaper, Namibia Today, Asser Ntinda. Ntinda had tweeted that government is busy rushing to legalise homosexuality instead of formulating measures to grow the economy so that it absorbs thousands of helpless unemployed youth.

Namibia Equal Rights Movement last week slammed SPYL for its homo-transphobic stance, as it has countlessly voiced its position on social-political issues aimed at advancing the rights especially of minorities across the country.

“LGBT+ rights are civil rights issues of our time, and it’s a matter of our time, and is a matter of urgency and a bread and butter issue that disproportionately affects the youth of Namibia,” the movement said.

The movement further said if SPYL is calling on all Swapo party members to prioritise issues that only pertain to their manifesto, then this also means they invite, once again, state-sanctioned homophobic attitudes, inciting hate, violence and marginalisation of the LGBTQ+ community.